Our Greatest Portion

 Meditation on Psalm 16:5-6

“The LORD is my portion and my cup; you make my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.”

Once there was a young boy of a very wealthy man.  He had two older sisters and an older brother.  One day his father pulled all of them into the living room and sat them down.  “My children,” he said, “today, I’m going to divide up my possessions and give you what will be your future inheritance.”

“As long as it is fair.”  The eldest son said.

“I will make it fair.  I have put in this hat four pieces of paper.  I will draw them out and tell you what is yours.”

“How are you going to divide up the inheritance?”  The eldest girl answered.

“You will see.”  The father replied.  “We will begin with the oldest and come to the youngest.”  The father reached his strong hand into the hat and pulled out a piece of paper.  He unrolled it and said, “Son, you will receive all of the 1000 acres of land.  The mountains, the waterfall by Fish Cauldron, the forests and the fields are all yours.  You own all my land except for the ten acres around the house and the fields by the stables.  Explore it.  Know it.  Love it.” 

The younger boy watched as his older brother hugged his father, thanked him and then ran off to explore the wild country.  He was surprised to see how his older brother ran out the door without finding out how the rest of the property was divided up.  A jealous thought stole through his mind: “I wish I would’ve got the land.  I loved when I walked with father through the woods and fished beside him in the boat.”     

“Now it’s your turn,” father said to his eldest daughter.  He pulled out another piece of paper and unfolded it.  He smiled.  “This will suit you well.  You will receive the mansion and the ten acres surrounding it, including the orchards.  You have always loved house and home.  You have always cooked with your mother and the other servants.  Everything in the house is yours except for the bedrooms of your brothers and sister.  You will need to care for them until they leave home.  Care for it.  Love it.  Be hospitable with it.”

The younger boy watched his sister hug his father, thank him and then ran off into another room.  He could hear her tell the good news to all the servants she met.  The boy thought: “Wow.  Father is very generous.”  But he also thought: “I wish I would’ve gotten the house.  There are so many good memories about this place.  I remember wrestling with father right here in the living room, playing games with him in the dining room and picking apples with him in the orchard.”

The father pulled out a third piece of paper and unfolded it.  Again he smiled.  “As I thought,” he said. “You my dearest little girl will receive the stables, the horses and all the pasturelands surrounding them.  I am glad you got them because I’ve often seen you ride them after school.  Though we have servants who muck the stalls, feed them and groom them, you are always out there caring for them.  They are now yours—all of them.  Care for the horses.  Learn to ride them better.  Love them.”

The girl squealed with delight and threw her arms around her father.  “You will come and ride with me every once in awhile?  Won’t you?”

“Yes.  Of course I will.”  Father assured her.

As his sister ran off to tell everyone the good news, the little boy thought: “My sister is so lucky.  She got all the horses and father is even going to ride with her.  I wonder what’s left for me.”   

His father noticed a tear well up in his son’s eyes.  “What is wrong, my son?”

“You gave my brother the land so he could climb mountains and swim in lakes.  You gave my sisters the house and the horses.  There is nothing left for me.

The father scooped him up in his arms and wiped away his tear.  “My dear little son, your older brother and sisters love me but they are often busy doing other things.  Though I drew pieces of paper out of the hat, I knew which ones to pick for each of my children.  Your brother loves the land.  Sometimes I go with him but often he goes alone.  Your older sister loves home.  She loves to cook and be hospitable.  You other sister loves the horses.  Though I will ride with her sometimes, she is always by the stables.”

“But what about me?  What do I get?”

“I give you myself.  Walk with me, laugh with me, talk with me and learn from me.  Know my strength, my joy, my wisdom and my love.  For when you have me, you will have much more then anyone else.”  His father said.

Then the boy understood that he received the greatest gift of all: his father.  In the days to come he would learn of his father’s strength to hike through forests and over mountains.  He would learn of his father’s joy as he would wrestle with him on the floor and have fun with him.  He would learn of his father’s wisdom in the way to live life.  But for now, he rested in his father’s love for him.  Of all that his father gave away, the youngest boy received the greatest portion.

This is what the author of Psalm 16 meant when he wrote: “The LORD is my portion and my cup.  You make my lot secure.  The boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.” 

God has chosen to give himself to us.  He is the greatest gift any of us could receive.  When I fully understand that the Lord God, the Creator of the galaxies and the earth, has given himself to me, then I am truly richer then Bill Gates and all the people on this earth. I learn to be content with everything I have.  Whether I have much or little, the Lord is more than enough for me. 

This reminds me of a contemporary Christian songwriter and singer, Chris Tomlin, who wrote a song entitled ‘Enough.’  The chorus is fitting for this verse:

“All of you is more than enough for all of me, for every thirst and every need. 

You satisfy me with your love, and all I have in You is more than enough.” 

When I have the Lord, then ‘the boundary lines have fallen for me in pleasant places; surely I have a delightful inheritance.’     

The Danger of Idolatry

Meditation on Psalm 16:4

“Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.  I will not pour out libations of blood to such gods or take up their names on my lips.” 

In comparison to the ‘holy people in the land,’ the author of this Psalm recognizes the danger of idolatry: “Those who run after other gods will suffer more and more.”

Why will they suffer?

In the very beginning God created man and woman in his image and in his likeness.  Humanity is or rather was supposed to reflect and represent God upon this earth.  When a man serves, obeys and worships the Lord, he is a reflected image of God towards all creation including other people.  However, when sin entered into the human race though the disobedience of the one command, the image of God within us was marred and twisted.  It was no longer a clear reflection or image of who God is.   

When a person worships another god and bows down to an idol, it further defiles the image of God within them and will ultimately lead to that person’s destruction.  The first two commandments instruct us not to have any other gods before the Lord or to make any graven images (idols).  The reason the Lord God gives is this: “for I…am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents…but showing love to a thousand generations.”  God is jealous of us.  He created us in his image and likeness.  He fashioned us in our mother’s womb and thus owns us.  When a person bows down to an idol to worship it or bows down to another god such as television, the internet or work or a hobby, or anything else that takes God’s place, God is jealous of us.

How will those who hasten after other gods suffer? 

1) Idolaters become like what they worship.  Perhaps you’ve heard the proverb, ‘You are what you eat.’  This is a metaphorically true statement.  If a man decides to eat fast food for a year, he will most likely begin to look like a hamburger.  He will be a little sluggish and feel sick to his stomach a lot of times.  If a man, however, decides to eat healthy then he will look and feel good. 

On a more important note, a person becomes like what he or she worships.  In comparison to the Lord God, the author of Psalm 115 says, “But their idols are silver and gold, made by human hands…those who make them will be like them, and so will all trust in them” (4-8).   People who make and trust in idols become like them.  In a couple other places in the Bible God says, “They followed worthless idols and themselves became worthless” (2 Kings 17:15; Jeremiah 2:5).  If a man bows down to another god or goddess, he will become like the idol—ignorant and worthless.  All we have to do is consider the influence of television in this generation to see this take place.  Television has portrayed violence, drugs and sexual immorality as cultural norms.  The generation that has grown up ‘in front of’ the television is becoming like what they see.

2) Idolatry defiles a person and land.  The Lord cries out through Ezekiel 20:31 “you continue to defile yourselves with all your idols to this day” (20:31) and also informs them of their judgment: “So I poured out my wrath on them because they had shed blood in the land and because they had defiled it with their idols” (36:18).  The word defiles simply means to make ‘unclean’ or perhaps we could say to make dirty.  Perhaps the reason why idolatry pollutes a man, woman or land is because it further stains and makes unclean the image of God in a person or nation’s life.  The person becomes less and less like the true God and more and more like the vile image he or she worships. 

3) Idol worshipers are put to shame.  The Lord warns the idolaters through Isaiah, “But those who trust in idols, who say to images, ‘You are our gods,’ will be turned back in utter shame” (42:17).  A person who runs after other gods and idols will ultimately be put to shame.  Another god or goddess cannot speak, listen, reason or instruct.  All idols will one day fail.  Compare this with the promise found in Romans 10:11 “Anyone who believes in him (the Lord) will never be put to shame.”

4) Idolaters exchange the glory of God for images, something considerably less then God.  God says through Jeremiah, “Has a nation ever changed its gods? (Yet they are not gods at all.) But my people have exchanged their glorious God for worthless idols” (2:11).  This is what Paul picks up in Romans 1:21-23. “For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.  Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of God for images.”

Let me give an illustration of this: Suppose a husband buys a doll that looks something like his wife.  Instead of spending time with his wife and developing a rich relationship with her, he spends all his time with this doll.  He has exchanged the glory of his wife in all her beauty and love for something that cannot respond to his devotion to her.  Or vice versa, suppose a wife buys a doll that looks like her husband and spends time with it.  The husband would grow jealous and want his wife to spend time with him, not the doll.  In a small way, this is what humans have done to God.  God is so much greater, more glorious and more wonderful then we can possibly imagine and people settle for so much less. 

5) Finally, idolaters are punished.  In just a few verses of the Bible, God warn us of the punishment decreed against idolaters: God says through Ezekiel about idolaters, “I will set my face against them and make them an example and a byword.  I will remove them from my people” (14:8).  Paul warns God’s people in several letters about idolatry: “Or do you not know that wrongdoers will not inherit the kingdom of God?  Do not be deceived: Neither the sexually immoral nor idolaters…will inherit the kingdom of God” (1 Corinthians 6:9).  “Put to death, therefore, whatever belongs to your earthly nature: sexual immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, which is idolatry.  Because of these, the wrath of God is coming” (Colossians 3:5-6). The final book of the Bible condemns all idolaters to the Lake of Fire.  “But the cowardly…the idolaters and all liars—they will be consigned to the fiery lake of burning sulfur.  This is the second death” (Revelation 21:8).  This is the ultimate doom and suffering for those who seek after other gods.

The author of this Psalm recognized that idolaters suffer; therefore, he refuses to ‘pour out libations of blood’ to another god or goddess.  This was simply a ritual act of worship in the ancient days.  He goes so far as to refuse to mention the names of other gods or goddesses on his lips. He wanted nothing to do them because he recognized those who run after them suffer more and more. 

Let all who read this (including myself) take heed lest we put something else in front of the Lord our God, the Creator of the heavens and the earth!

A Different Delight

Meditation on Psalm 16:3

“I say of the holy people who are in the land, ‘They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.’”

On Sunday mornings I drive about a half an hour to attend a church.  After I part my car and walk into the lobby, someone usually greets me.  After this, I enter the ‘sanctuary’ and sometimes greet even more people, shaking their hands and talking with them.  I sit down in a green cushioned pew and wait till the service begins.  Depending on how my week went or the quality of my time with the Lord that morning, my mind is either ready for the service or in a thousand different directions.  However, I confess that I am not thinking about how the little old lady sitting in front of me is all my delight.  Nor am I pondering about how the young couple sitting behind me brings me great joy or the teenager sitting the next pew over makes me smile.  Yet this is exactly what this verse says!!  “I will say to the holy people in the land, ‘They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight.’”

God’s people are ‘the holy people in the land.’  God told the Israelites in Exodus 19:5-6, “Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.”  Thus the Israelites were the holy people among all the nations or at least that was God’s desire for them.  This is echoed and applied to Christians in 1 Peter 2:9.  “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.” 

The holy people in the land are the ‘saints’ or in today’s society we would call them the true Christians, the followers and lovers of Jesus Christ who treasure him above all else.  It is not our own righteousness that makes us holy; rather, it is the Person and work of Jesus Christ: “Both the one who makes people holy and those who are made holy are of the same family.  So Jesus is not ashamed to call them brothers and sisters” (Hebrews 2:11). “And by that will, we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Hebrews 10:10). 

What does it look like to be holy?  It means that a person is set apart, pure, doing what is right and seeking and devoting himself/herself to God’s glory above all other things.  They are marked by obedience to God’s commandments (Deuteronomy 28:9), abstinence from immorality and greed (Ephesians 5:3) and thus purity of heart, compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience, forgiveness and love (Colossians 3:12-14).  They walk in the path of righteousness that leads to holiness (Romans 6:19) and they cleanse themselves from wasteful things so that they will be special vessels, useful to the Master and prepared for any good work (2 Timothy 2:20).  Whenever someone pursues after God, these qualities will be evident in their lives!  

These people are the ones who are ‘noble’ or ‘excellent.’  There is no 'nominal Christian' to them.  They follow Christ and love him even when it is not popular.  They seek pleasure from Christ.  As a result, they are the ones we take pleasure in.  If a teenage boy tells his friends, ‘No’ when they tempt him to view pornography or watch an immoral movie, we should be quick to affirm him of his choice and say, "You made us proud when you said no."  When a father chooses his spouse and children over a greedy promotion that promises more money but would consume his time, he is one we should delight in. Patience with children, humility in ministry, forgiveness to those who have hurt us and ridding the house of anything impure, including many television shows—the people who do these things should be our delight!  Let these people be our 'celebrities,' not the ones on television.

Can you and I honestly say that we delight in our brothers and sisters in Christ who do these things?  If not, why not?  Is it possible that we do not desire God's glory through them?  If this is the case, then I must check my own heart until I can say along with King David, the author of this Psalm, “I will say to the holy people in the land, ‘They are the noble ones in whom is all my delight!”

Our Greatest Good (part 3)

Meditation on Psalm 16:2b

Continued

"I will say to the Lord... 'apart from you I have no good thing.'"

3) God is our greatest Good because he is good towards us, especially to those who are his children.    

In just a smattering of Psalms we see that God is good towards those who fear, follow and take refuge in him: “Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life” (Psalm 23:6). “How abundant are the good things that you have stored up for those who fear you, that you bestow in the sight of all, on those who take refuge in you” (31:19). “The lions may grow weak and hungry, but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing” (34:10).  “For the Lord God is a sun and shield; the Lord bestows favor and honor; no good thing does he withhold from those whose walk is blameless” (84:11).  “The Lord will indeed give what is good, and our land will yield its harvest” (85:12). 

Even in the New Testament we read that God is the Giver of good things: “Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows” (James 1:17).

There are three truths of God’s goodness towards us that are scattered throughout the New Testament.

a) The first truth is that God gives good things to those who ask for them.  In Matthew 7:7-11 Jesus instructs his disciples to continue to ask, seek and knock in prayer.  An answer will come for those who continue to do so.  Then as the master teacher, he draws an illustration from everyday life: If little Johnny came up to you as a parent, rubbed his tummy and said, “Could I have a slice of jelly bread?”  Would you give him a rock as a cruel joke?  No!  Of course you wouldn’t!  Or if he sat at the dinner table and asked, “Could you pass me some fish?”  Would you throw a poisonous snake at him? No! Of course you wouldn’t!  Jesus draws his own conclusion: “If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”

In the Magician’s Nephew, one of the Chronicles of Narnia by C. S. Lewis, Digory and Polly are sent on a quest to find a treasured fruit from a sacred tree in the middle of a garden.  They take flight on a winged horse and land in a valley mid evening.  While the horse, Fledge, munches on grass, the two children wonder what to eat and the following conversation takes place: 

“Well, I do think someone might have arranged about our meals,” said Digory.

“I’m sure Aslan would have, if you’d asked him,” said Fledge.

“Wouldn’t he know without being asked?” said Polly

“I’ve no doubt he would,” said the Horse… “But I’ve sort of idea he likes to be asked.”

Have I?  Have we forgotten to ask our Father in heaven for good?  Perhaps we think amiss.  Perhaps you have grown up with a father or mother who was always busy and never had time to listen, really listen to your requests.  You then think, “God is too busy with galaxies and nebulae to listen to my pitiful request.”  Or perhaps you have grown up with parents who ignored you or criticized you for a good request and think God is like that.

Child of God!  Have you not caught what Jesus said?  “How much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!”  Perhaps we need to look at God through a different lens: God delights in giving good gifts to his children.  He waits and waits for his children to approach him and ask for strength to endure, food for the table, understanding in his word, wisdom to train your children in his ways and the list goes on. 

But some of us will say, “I have asked him for good things and he hasn’t answered.”  Or has he?  Could it be that God has refused a certain request of yours now only to give you something better later on or to have you wait for it so that you appreciate the true value of it?  Or could it be that God has our eternal good in mind when he answers differently then we think? 

Our Father in heaven knows what is best when we ask for what is good.

b) The second truth is that God completes the ‘good work’ that he began in us.  Paul wrote to the Philippians that he was ‘confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 1:6).  God begins things and he ends things in his time.  On August 17, 1982 he began his good work in me.  He gave my mother wisdom to answer a simple question about the origin of dinosaurs and then shared the gospel with me.  On that sunny afternoon God opened my heart to believe in Jesus.  His good work began in me. 

Every corporate church and every individual who loves and follows Jesus Christ is a ‘good work’ of God.  He began this good work in them.  He molds it in them, breaks things up and builds things up or weeds evil things out and plants good desires in us so that his good work becomes very good.  He is the Potter and we are the clay (c.f. Isaiah 64:8; Jeremiah 18:6); he is the Craftsman and we are his workmanship; he is the Artist and we are his masterpiece.  The potter carves and molds deep crevices in the clay to make it something beautiful.  The craftsman chisels rough edges to make it smooth.  The artist blends colors on the canvas to create a variety of shades that all reflect his desires.  So it is with God.  He began a good work in us and is molding us, shaping us and weaving together colors in our lives so that on the day of Christ Jesus his good work will be completed in us.  This process is sometimes painful on our part but the end result and reward will be greater then what we can possibly imagine.

And we can rest assured that he will finish this work in us.  He is not like a potter who throws the lump of clay back into the bin and leaves his profession.  He is not like the craftsman who becomes bored with his painting.  No!  He is ever working in us.  He will never give up on us until that work is completed in Christ Jesus!

c) This leads to the third truth of God’s goodness towards us: he has the power to create good despite our circumstances.  “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose” (Romans 8:28).  In all things—accidents, heartbreaks, a cruel boss, a long day, hospital visits, cancer and the list goes on—God weaves it together for our good and his glory.  In the midst of painful trials and circumstances I am hard pressed to believe this verse.  I cannot always see the immediate good that comes from heartbreak or having a cruel boss or whatever else might trouble me.  But God takes it and begins to work something so beautiful and so good in our lives that when he finally brings it about, in this life or the next, the good outcome will be greater than the trials and evils that befall us.  And we will wonder in that day how we ever doubted God’s goodness towards us!  God’s intentions towards his children are always good and he works towards that end.  Thus we can say with King David “I am still confident of this: that I will see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living” (Psalm 27:13).

Once when I worked at a childcare center, a little girl came to me and said, “Look at what so and so did.”  When I looked at her little notebook that served as her diary of sorts I saw where another student wrote: “You are stupid” or something like that.  While I did talk to the other child about this, the girl was still sad that this was in her diary.  It was in pen and she could not erase it.  It was now part of her diary, her life and written in ink.  Then God gave me a bright idea.  I took another pen and began to shade in some letters and put a circle on the ‘t’ and put pedals on it.  Then I did something with the other letters so that it was a small picture of a sunshine and flower.  It was not something ugly but something beautiful that the little girl appreciated.  In a much, much more greater way God does this with all the sicknesses, trials, difficulties, evils, heartaches, sin and whatever else that comes in our lives.  He takes it and makes a rose blossom from ashes.

Never doubt God’s goodness towards us.  He is our greatest Good!  He is good, he is the ultimate standard for good in our lives and he is good towards us!

Apart from our Lord, we have no good thing.  Our greatest good is God himself.  Ponder his goodness to you, even in the midst of trials.  Think of his goodness when you pass by flowers and forests.  Thank him for his goodness towards you always.

"I will say to the Lord, 'You are my Lord; apart from you I have no good thing.'"

God is good and he is our greatest Good!

Our Greatest Good (part 2)

Meditation on Psalm 16:2b

Continued

"I will say to the LORD..."apart from you I have no good thing."

2) God is our greatest Good because he is the ultimate standard for what is good and thus approves or disapproves what is good and what is not. We see this in his approval of creation.  Each day when he made something, ‘God saw that it was good.’  The light, stars, mountains, trees, rivers, lions, sheep, cats and dogs were all good.  Then he created humans in his own image and likeness. At the end of his work, “God saw all that he had made, and it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). 

Then a great sorrow entered the world when our first parents disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit.  Sin entered the human race, corrupted us and as a result God cursed the earth.  Sin is the anti-good agent in us so that ‘there is no one who does good’ (Psalm 14:1) and even our own righteousness becomes nothing more then a filthy rag (Isaiah 64:6). In fact it robs us of the good God intends for us (c.f. Jeremiah 5:25; 18:10).    

But God is still good to us.  He gave us the Law, which is God’s standard of goodness for us.  The author of Psalm 119:39 tells God: “Your laws are good.” These laws include the Ten Commandments along with the other ones found in the Bible.  While many people wince when they hear the word ‘rule’ or ‘law,’ God gave them for our good.  There is a question posed to the Israelites in Deuteronomy 10:12-13 that points to the reason why God gave his commands: “And now, Israel, what does the Lord your God ask of you but to fear the Lord your God, to walk in obedience to him, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and with all you soul, and to observe the Lord’s commands and decrees that I am giving you today for your own GOOD.”

Even though the Lord’s commands are good and given for our good, they are so good that it draws out even the slightest sin in our lives.  Paul describes it in Romans 7 this way:

“So then, the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.  Did that which is good, then, become death to me? By no means!  Nevertheless, it used what is good to bring about my death, so that through the commandment sin might become utterly sinful.” 

When Paul finally concludes God’s commands are good and that in his own strength he cannot measure up to them, he declares: “What a wretched man I am!  Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death?  Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!”

Jesus Christ is our greatest good.  For while Jesus hung on the cross for six torturous hours, the love and compassion of God towards sinners and the justice and wrath of God against sinners met and provided a way for us sinners to be rescued.  And the power of God raised Jesus from the dead the third day so that we might believe he is our greatest good!  This is good news for us!  Very good news indeed!    

Our Greatest Good (part 1)

Meditation on Psalm 16:2b

"I will say to the LORD..."apart from you I have no good thing."

As I grew up, my parents taught me a simple prayer to say before our meals: “God is good, God is great and we thank you for our food. Amen.”  It was a child’s prayer to express thanks for our bountiful meal of meatloaf, mashed potatoes and green beans or whatever else we might have.  We prayed and then ate, perhaps not realizing the true hidden bounty in the prayer that God IS good and our meal was only a fraction of his goodness to us.

In the first part of this verse, David declares God as his Lord or Master.  His attitude about God as his Master is not one of an embittered, remorseful, regretful, spiteful or hateful attitude that only obeys him because he must.  Quite the contrary! David declares to God, “Apart from you I have no good thing” or “I have no good apart from you.”  It is very profound.  In other words, God is not only the Giver of all good things (c.f. James 1:17) but he is our greatest Good.  There is no higher good than God in our lives.

The Lord is good and the Source of all good things.  But what does it mean that God is good and that he is our greatest Good? 

1) God is our greatest good because he is good.  His character, the essence of his Being is good and not evil.  Therefore he is not some monster bent to destroy people on a maniacal whim or some Roman pagan god with a twisted view of pleasure.  No!  Instead, he is good. 

What does this look like in God’s character?  In Exodus 33 Moses asks the Lord, “Show me your glory” or to rephrase it, “Show me what makes you so great!” The Lord replies, “I will cause all my GOODNESS to pass in front of you, and I will proclaim my name, the Lord, in your presence.” 

In Exodus 34 the Lord passed in front of Moses and proclaimed his name:

“The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands, and forgiving wickedness, rebellion and sin.  Yet he does not leave the guilty unpunished; he punishes the children and their children for the sin of the parents to the third and forth generation.” 

This is God’s goodness.  It is wrapped up and woven together with his grace, compassion, patience, love, faithfulness, forgiveness and justice.  All of these character attributes flow from the ‘all my goodness’ God told about that passed in front of Moses.

We see all of these at work throughout the Bible.  God’s goodness shines through his compassion in Psalm 145:9 “The Lord is good to all; he has compassion on all he has made.”  The Lord sends his rain to water the crops of the good and the evil people so that they will grow and produce food for them.  He provides jobs, shelter, food and clothes for both because of his compassion (c.f. Matthew 5:45; Acts 14:17).  His patience shines through as he waits for the wicked to repent (2 Peter 3:9).  

Out of his goodness he forgives and instructs wrongdoers in his ways (Psalm 25:7-8), he satisfies his creation with good things (Psalm 104:28) and becomes a refuge and caretaker for those in trouble (Nahum 1:7). 

In Psalm 136 the author praises God: “Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good.  His love endures forever.”  The rest of the Psalm declares God’s goodness and enduring love through his acts of creation, the deliverance from an oppressive government and the conquest and judgment on wicked nations (God’s justice). 

God is good!       

The Lord our Master

Meditation on Psalm 16:2a

“I say to the LORD, ‘You are my Lord.’”

The author of this Psalm, David, declares that God is his Lord or his Master. 

The closest parallel we have in our society of the words ‘Lord’ or ‘master’ and ‘servant’ is ‘employer’ and ‘employee.’  The employer hires an employee based on her skills, aptitude and experience.  She will work for an agreed wage.  If she is a good employee, she will most likely earn a raise or a promotion.   If she is not, she may face discipline or termination. 

Though similar in some ways, the relationship between ‘master’ and ‘servant’ was different in the ancient days.  A master or lord owned the servant or slave.  The servant was the master’s property.  A good master would provide for his servant’s basic needs of food, shelter and protection.  We get a glimpse of this in Psalm 123:2, which says, “As the eyes of slaves look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a female slave look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes look to the Lord our God till he shows us mercy.”  This verse pictures the eyes of slaves seeking out their master to receive something from his hands. 

Yet the master fully expects the servant will obey him, work and perform his designated tasks.  We are not exempt as servants of the Lord.  Of this we have numerous examples in the New Testament: Jesus likens his return to servants waiting for their master to return from a wedding banquet.  Those he finds watching are blessed (Luke 12:35-40).  In the parable of the talents, the master entrusted his servants with wealth and expected them to put it to work (Matthew 25:14-30).  Jesus our Lord asks us, “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I say?” (Luke 6:46).  Paul instructs the slaves in Ephesus to ‘serve wholeheartedly, as if you were serving the Lord, not people’ (Ephesians 6:7) and those in Colossae to ‘work at it with all your heart as working for the Lord, not for human masters…It is the Lord Christ you are serving’ (Colossians 4:23-24).  Peter instructs his readers to ‘set apart Christ as Lord in your hearts’ (1 Peter 3:15).

God as our Lord, our Master, will provide for all of our needs.  However, we have a duty turned delight to serve, obey and love him.  This leads to a second and very beautiful truth that the rest of the verse declares.  But this will be the topic of another 'raindrop' in a few days... 

A Prayer of Protection

Meditation on Psalm 16:1

“Keep me safe, my God, for in you I take refuge.”

Before a child goes out to play tag or another sport, I have often seen the little boy or girl hand something to his parents.  Perhaps it might be a bracelet, a necklace, a toy or even a cell phone.  The child does not want to risk losing the delightful item and asks the parent to watch it for him or her.  The child has full confidence that the parent will keep this item safe from harm.  This is at the root of David’s prayer; only he is asking God to keep him safe, not an item.

The word ‘keep…safe’ has the strong nuance of guarding something or paying close and careful attention to something.  Thus the parent in the above illustration guards her child’s special item and often says, “Don’t worry, I’ll watch it for you.” 

In ancient days the word often conveyed a serious and somber side.  When a commander entrusted a prisoner one of his soldiers, he would often say, “Your life for his life.”  In other words, if the prisoner escapes, you die.  This puts the soldier on high alert.  He carefully observes the prisoner to make sure he isn’t loosening his bonds in someway.  He guards him with the utmost perception so that he doesn’t lose his own life. 

It is the constant care, the careful watch and the perceptive protection David, the author of the Psalm, asks God for.  “Keep me safe, my God.”  Carefully watch over my life and protect me.  What does he ask protection from?  The passage does not say.  It could be his enemies, wicked men, betrayers, sickness or plagues or any number of things.  He doesn’t mention it.  He only asks God to keep him safe.

The reason for this is the second clause of the prayer: “for in you I take refuge.”

I remember a time as a child when my sisters and I were playing out near the barn.  As we played dark clouds gathered, a storm was coming.  We did not pay attention to the sky until a low rumble of thunder shook the earth.  We looked at each other and then bolted to our house.  Our house was a refuge from the storm and all things frightening.  It was a shelter from the rainstorms in the spring, the thunderstorms during summer and fall and the blizzards and cold in the dead of winter.  It was a ‘safe place’ away from the mean teachers at school that would burden us with homework, the bullies and the long days at school.  My home was my refuge when I grew up.

In a far greater way, God is our refuge.  He is a shelter from the storms of life whether they are angry bosses, gossiping friends, slander, sicknesses, heartbreaks, loneliness, depression and the list goes on.  The Lord as our refuge does not necessarily take the storm, enemy or troubling circumstance away from us but he does offer protection, security and solace in the midst of it.

When I seek him as my refuge, whether I realize it or not, I acknowledge that God is secure but I am vulnerable; God is strong but I am weak; God is all-sufficient but I am the one who lacks.  It also demonstrates our reliance upon him.  A rabbit runs for shelter under a brush pile because it knows it cannot defeat a red tail hawk.  In the same way, we must learn to fly to God when troubles assail us, circumstances overwhelm us, enemies are all around us or sickness overtakes us. 

Go to God first.  Seek him.  He is our refuge.  He is our shelter.  He is the one who will keep us safe.    

Thankfulness

Thankful

“I will give thanks to you, LORD, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds” (Psalm 9:1).

As I recently read this verse on a train ride, the phrase ‘with all my heart’ captured my attention.  It pierced the depths of my heart with a simple but profound question: What am I thankful for with all my heart?

When people say ‘thank you’ either to God or people, sometimes it is out of obligation, something routine and thus even edging near the shallow end.  I have experienced this in my own prayers.  Sometimes, I will begin, “Father, thank you for this day…” without a thought.  The questions, 'what am I thankful for about this day?' or 'Why am I thankful for this day?' never cross my mind.  It is merely something I tack on to my prayer because I learned to do it that way.  Or perhaps the more probable is that at one time I was truly thankful for the day but then just made it a routine to thank him for it. 

But giving thanks must go deeper.  The nuance of the word ‘thanks’ in this verse is ‘to confess’ or ‘to acknowledge’, usually publicly. This makes sense when I say ‘thank you’ to a person for such and such a gift, deed or service. I acknowledge that this person went out of his or her way to give me a part of his or her heart.  It is similar with God.  When I say, “Thank you God for such and such” I confess and acknowledge that God gave or revealed something about his heart to me. 

The second part of this verse helps me to understand how to give thanks ‘with all my heart.’  “I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” Perhaps the best way to stir up gratitude in a cold heart is to begin to recount God’s wonderful deeds, both what he has done as revealed through the Bible or what he has done in your own personal life.

I still remember working a night shift at a grocery store during school.  I did not want to be there and confess that I had a negative attitude about the whole matter.  Then a foreign thought came into my mind: “I’ll try to come up with a hundred things to thank God for.”  So as I worked, I began to recount God’s wonderful deeds and things I was grateful for.

It started with the simple things I knew: the day, my eyesight, my ears to hear, my hands to work and touch, the ability to work, my family, my friends, the chance to study (I was going through school at the time), things I was learning, my workplace and onto the greater works of God such as his forgiveness, his righteousness given to me, his adoption of me into his family and so on.  After each of these I asked the question: “Well, what about the day am I thankful for?” or “Why am I thankful for my parents?” or “What about God’s forgiveness am I thankful for?”  This helped me to go deeper in my thanks and gratitude to God. Somewhere around numbers 30-40 my whole outlook on things changed.  Being thankful kindled a warm fire in my cold, stubborn hard-heart that would glow and warm others by its fire. 

I later wrote (whether this was the incident that inspired this quote or not I’m not sure), “A heartfelt ‘thanks’ to God heats our cold prayers, saturates our dry ones and turns sour complaints into sweet praise.”

Don’t settle for shallowness in your thankfulness.  Dig deep in your thankfulness.  Be specific not shallow.  Recount his deeds not your worries.  Be thankful and don’t complain. 

My desire is to say as David said long ago:

“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds.” 

Feathery Friends

A musing of birds and barn swallows

“Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear.  Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?  Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable than they?” Matthew 6:25-26

Every time I return from a run across the countryside, I stretch out underneath a pavilion in the nearby sport’s park.  About a month ago I noticed a couple of barn swallows taking nest in the rafters above.  Like a young couple in love they chirped and chased each other, occasionally taking a break to chatter with me or at me (I hope the former but fear the latter). One or the other would then roost in the nest for a while as the other hunted in the soccer fields nearby for scrumptious gnats and other insects.  “Were there eggs?”  I wondered to myself.  I would have to wait and see and let time reveal their secret. 

Barn swallows always brought back pleasant memories for me.  We had several generations roost in the corner of the porch where I grew up.  Sometimes, though, they were unpleasant guests.  They made the bottom corner a bathroom, chattered warnings to us when we sat on the porch swing and dive bombed our cat Blackjack several times (they really didn’t like him!).  Yet as a child curious about life, I daily watched the daily transformation from when the hatchlings first stuck out their little heads with enormous beaks to when they sprouted feathers and learned to fly.   

They also aided me while I mowed grass.  Countless armies of hidden insects erupted from the freshly mowed grass as I made my passes and rows.  They swarmed around me and would surely have overpowered me and carried me off if it wasn’t for my feathery friends.  Like a fleet of jet fighters in a dogfight, the barn swallows mustered their forces and swept through the masses of disturbed bugs.  The swarms fled and I continued to mow.

So with childlike curiosity, I kept watch after my runs to see if any enormous beaks would stick out when mama bird flew nearby.  And sure enough, one day after a hot, sweaty run, the sight of a beak refreshed me. They have grown now and their parents will soon teach them how to fly.

Four feathery friends

But all along, if I will listen, they teach me another lesson.  On a mountainside long ago, Jesus addressed a crowd of people through his followers.  Most of these people were poor farmers or fishermen who paid taxes and tried to provide for all their family members.  They worried about food.  They worried about clothes.  They worried a lot.  And as Jesus spoke, he pointed to the birds and said, “Consider the birds of the air; they do not sow nor reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.” 

Think about the birds for a moment.  When was the last time you or I saw Mr. Barn Swallow buy a tractor, then plow and disc the garden, plant it and water it?  When was the last time you saw him buy hammer, nails and timber to build a barn to store his food in it?  No. From eagles to hummingbirds, our feathery friends do not worry about where their food comes from. 

Jesus reminds us that ‘your heavenly Father feeds them.’  God takes note of the smallest of his creatures and cares even for them.  He whispers to the frogs where the best flies in the bog live, he uncovers plump raspberries and blackberries for the birds and delivers treasure maps to the squirrels and chipmunks where acorns and walnuts can be found.  God provides for the smallest of his creatures.  Not a bird falls from the sky without his knowledge of it.

Mama bird feeding her grown hatchlings

And if God so cares for the smallest of his creatures, how much more ‘valuable’ are you and I, the crowns of his creation.  We are valuable to him.  He made us in his own likeness and in his own image.  We are valuable to him.  He searches us and knows the deepest corners of our hearts, the hidden thoughts of our mind and the tender muscle fibers after a workout.  We are valuable to him.  Though we all go our own way instead of his way, he ‘so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son so that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life’ (John 3:16).  We are valuable to him.  Like the father in the prodigal son parable (found in Luke 15), he stands and waits for us to come home.  We are valuable to him.  Those who believe in his Son, Jesus, have the unique privilege to be called ‘children of God’ (1 John 3:1).  I emphasize this point because we either tend to forget God’s goodness in trouble or believe what others say about us.

This is the lesson that our feathery friends teach us often.  So the next time you are anxious or worried about your life—listen to the birds sing in the morning or watch them fly and dart about.  Then remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 6:26:  “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow nor reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them.  Are you not much more valuable then they?” 

God's Everlasting Covenant of Love

Meditation on Isaiah 55:3b

I will make an everlasting covenant with you, 

My faithful love promised to David.

            A covenant is a solemn promise that binds God and his people together and is usually initiated by God.[1] Often in the Old Testament, it involved cutting an animal in half and one or both parties walking between the pieces.  This bloody ritual bound the two parties together in a legal agreement that displayed the horrific reality if they failed to keep the agreement: namely, they would end up like the animals.  This is what took place with Abraham in Genesis 15.  Only there, God treaded the path between the carcasses and endangered only himself.  We watch him initiate covenants with his people as early as Noah.  God set the rainbow in the sky for Noah, his family and all generations to see so that they would know God would never again flood the earth.  “Whenever the rainbow appears in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and all living creatures of every kind on the earth” (Genesis 9:16).  God made a covenant and bound himself with Abraham (Genesis 15) and renewed it with Isaac and Jacob.  When the Lord gave Moses the Law, he established it as a covenant between him and his people.

            God initiates the covenant and thus binds himself to his people.

  

            The Lord made a covenant with David during his reign.  The shepherd boy turned king desired to build God a house, a temple.  This is a noble thought and through the prophet Nathan, God established a covenant with David and his family line: “The Lord declares to you that the Lord himself will establish a house for you…I will raise up your offspring to succeed you…and I will establish his kingdom…my love will never be taken away from him” (2 Samuel 7:11, 15).  This is God’s covenant to David, his solemn promise.

 

            This verse in Isaiah follows on the heels of God’s invitation to come to him.  Why?  Why should we come to him?  Yes, God desires to satisfy us fully.  But there is more.  He also desires to make ‘an everlasting covenant’ with us, the solemn promise of his love to David.  Let’s unpack this a little bit more.

 

We read in 2 Samuel 7:15 that God’s love will never be taken away from David’s descendants, those who sit on his throne.  Although David died several hundred years earlier then the writing of this prophecy, God bestows his love upon David’s descendants.  When Gabriel appears to Mary several hundred years after the writing of this prophecy, he announces Jesus’ role.  “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end” (Luke 132-33).  Perhaps this love is alluded to when God twice declares it to His Son while he is on earth, namely at his baptism and the Mount of Transfiguration.

So if Jesus is the descendant of David and God bestows his love on him, what does this have to do with us?  Everything and much more!

 

When we believe Jesus, his death for our sins and his resurrection, we are united to him: “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his” (Romans 6:5).   Paul uses the marriage imagery to magnify this point. “For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and the two will become one flesh.’  This is a profound mystery—but I am talking about Christ and the church” (Ephesians 5:31-32).  This is bonding indeed!

   

The covenant stipulation, the ‘legal requirements’ if you will, is solely based on God’s ‘faithful love promised to David.’  In other words, when we believe in Jesus, we enter in, share in and partake of the same covenant love promised to David and his descendants, climaxing in Jesus and given to those who follow him.  This covenant is ours through the Son of David, Jesus the Messiah, and is sealed by his gruesome death.  As he said hours before he was crucified, “Drink from it, all of you.  This is my blood of the covenant poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins” (Matthew 26:27-28).

       

            Whether Paul alluded to this covenant love in Romans 8 or not, it certainly is God’s promised love towards us.

Who will bring any charge against those whom God has chosen?  It is God who justifies. Who then is the one who condemns?  No one.  Christ Jesus who died—more than that, who was raised to life—is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.  Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?  Shall trouble or hardship or persecution or famine or nakedness or danger or sword?…For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

            In the everlasting covenant, sealed by Jesus’ blood and ratified by the empty tomb, we are secure in God’s love.  God will not turn his back on us because of his covenant towards us in his Son.  He loves us deeply and is committed wholly to us: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31).

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[1] I do not wish to delve into the topic of covenants here and have merely simplified what a covenant is.  Wayne Grudem defines a covenant as “an unchangeable, divinely imposed legal agreement between God and man that stipulates the conditions of their relationship.”  Grudem, Wayne. Systematic Theology. Grand Rapids, Zondervan, 1994. 515.  

The Invitation

A meditation on Isaiah 55:1-3a 

Come, all you who are thirsty, come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat!  Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost.  Why spend money on what is not bread, and your labor on what does not satisfy? Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good, and you will delight in the richest of fare.  Give ear and come to me; listen, that you may live.

From Genesis to Revelation, God constantly invites his people to something greater then themselves.  He invites Abraham to leave his father’s household and journey to an unknown land.  He calls an aged Moses from a burning bush and instructs him to lead his people to freedom from an oppressive nation.  He calls Samuel when he was a boy and made him a prophet to his generation.  He took David from tending a flock of sheep and appointed him as king over his people.

The invitation is different in Isaiah 55.  It is not a summons to journey to a foreign country or call to a rescue mission.  Neither is it a call to kingship or prophet-hood.  Rather it beckons us with a simple plea: “Come.” 

            

The recipients of this summons are the thirsty.  They are invited to “come to the waters.”  Imagine for a moment that you are in a desert wasteland.  The sun glowers over you with burning hatred, your clothes are ragged and torn, your lips are chapped and your mouth, dry.  For you, water is scarce, precious, life sustaining and giving.  As soon as you sight an oasis from afar, you run and gulp it down in great draughts.  Your body is refreshed from the weariness of travel and the sun’s unrelenting oppression.  Your mind relaxes from the strenuous worries and anxieties of death by dehydration.  Your heart renews from its dry and barren state and thoughts of hope return.  All this happens because you quenched your thirst at the waters.      

            

“Come…you who have no money, come, buy and eat!”  These other recipients are classified as the poor.  They are familiar with empty bellies.  Their meager meals of stale bread and gravy do not satisfy their gnawing hunger pains.  Perhaps they even scavenge for food in a nearby garbage can.  Any invitation for food is welcomed, especially when it goes beyond their stale diet of bland, staple foods.  Here God summons them to buy ‘wine and milk,’ symbolic of delight and nourishment.  Here their bellies will be filled with the ‘richest of fare,’ a feast like none other.

           

Remember, they have no money.  This feast is on God’s account, not theirs.  He flips the proverbial bill for the ‘wine and milk.’  All he requires of you and I is found in the word, ‘Come.’  Come, just as we are, thirsty and poor, to drink and delight in Him.     

Yet there is a question He asks to our hearts in this passage: “Why spend money on what is not bread and your labor on what does not satisfy?”  This is better illustrated.  Imagine you are poor.  Every night you and your family crave a solid meal, something beyond your thin diet.  Then one evening, someone slips a hundred dollars under your door.  You take the money to the store but instead of buying bread and meat, a meal that will satisfy you and your family, you spend it on a new outfit or a video game.  A new outfit is good but it will not satisfy your hunger.  A video game can relieve stress but it will not stave off starvation. 

Perhaps the problem in 21^st century America is not that we are in a desert wasteland searching for water or on the streets of an inner city scavenging for food.  No, we are far more vulnerable to drink from the shallow, muddy and barren wells to quench our thirst, then to visit the spring of living water.  We would rather spend our money on potato chips and candy, things that only temporarily relieve our spiritual hunger pains, rather then a feast that satisfies.  Such is our greatest problem.

Looking beyond water and food, it is very clear that the question asks, “Why do you go somewhere else to satisfy your deepest needs, other then God?”  Facebook, friends, fashion, video games, entertainment with music, movies and movie stars all promise satisfaction but fail to fulfill.     

            

Yet God is different.  His promises are never shallow or empty.

His invitation summons us to ‘listen’ to him and ‘come’ to him.  “Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good…listen that you may live” (2-3).  God’s spoken word produces fruit in us. “Blessed is the one…whose delight is in the law of the Lord and who meditates on his law day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season” (Psalm 1).  His word strengthens us, even in our sorrows: “My soul is weary with sorrow; strengthen me according to your word” (Psalm 119:28).  His word refreshes us: “The law of the Lord is perfect, refreshing the soul” (Psalm 19:7).  His word sanctifies us. “Sanctify them by the truth; your word is truth” (John 17:17).   

Listening to his word equals life: “They are not just idle words to you—they are your life” (Deuteronomy 32:47).  His word imparts life.  Jesus said, “The Spirit gives life…the words I have spoken to you—they are full of the Spirit and life” (John 6:63).  Peter assures us that God’s word brings rebirth, new life: “For you have been born again…through the living and enduring word of God.”  Refusing his word only means death.  A quick perusal of the Bible illustrates this: Pharaoh rejecting God’s command through Moses, the Israelites disobeying him again and again until they were finally exiled and the world in Revelation that refuses to repent of their ways.   

            

God’s invitation is a summons to ‘listen’ and to ‘come.’  “Give ear and come to me.”  He is the feast that fully satisfies.  He is the water that quenches our terrible thirst.  He alone satisfies.  He refreshes and nourishes.  He fulfills and fills us.  God and nobody or no one else can or ever will.  The Son of God emphasizes this when he says, “I am the Bread of life” (John 6:48) and “Let everyone who is thirsty come to me and drink” (7:37).  Don’t go over there.  Come to me.  Don’t feast over there.  Come to me.  Don’t drink in a broken well.  Come to me. 

“Come.”  It happens to be the final invitation at the end of the Bible: “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’  And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’  Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life” (Revelation 22:17).